


Fairy Godmother

by elleorwhatever



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 12:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6006667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleorwhatever/pseuds/elleorwhatever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ambitious Una Cousland is not entirely honest in her intentions toward Alistair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairy Godmother

How had it come to this?  How had she fallen, so hard and fast?

Una heaved, arching, shoulders splayed, as her lungs struggled to keep up with the demands Alistair’s hands and tongue made of them.  He slid his mouth down her body’s length, and her tongue dripped as she imagined the taste; salt soaked sweat and the earthy grit of the road.  Alistair’s fingers contracted, spread, explored inside her and she hummed, flicked her hips.  He held her in place.  Such a large man he was, in all the ways that were so _ very nice _ , and she half-hated the way he could pin her helpless, half-adored it.

_ Adored  _ it, Andraste’s Enormous Alamarri Ass, how had she become someone who could be so undone by an idiot like this?

Una fingered his blonde hair, caressing, tugging.  Alistair looked up.  He looked at her and her thighs spasmed, her stomach, her heart, her everything dropped.  Dropped somewhere deep and dark, a primal pit from long ago, where her love had sparked, flickered, bloomed huge and searing.

Eleanor Cousland slapped the missive down on the desk.

“ _ That Orlesian whore _ ,” she snapped.

Una leaned against the wall of her mother’s office.  It was a pleasant little room, dressed in all the accoutrements of a pleasant little Fereldan lady.  Her mother’s armor sat on a form in the corner, the leather stressed and faded with use, the mail gleaming with a recent oiling.  Her mother’s shield leaned against a sword stand, both shield and swords being quite valuable.  Valuable in the sense of  _ worthwhile _ , lacking brittle edges and ridiculous gilding.

A vase of fresh wildflowers sat on the desk next to a forgotten, delicate tea set.  Eleanor sat back and stared at the offending bit of parchment in front of her.  They had known, of course, that Cailan was considering a new wife.  They had been banking on it.  But this?

“Are you really so surprised, Mother?” Una said.

She pulled her stole closer; the hearth was unlit.  When one of her mother’s trusted servants had woken her, she’d come quickly, slipping silent down the halls.

Eleanor waved vaguely. “I should have known.  He plays the fool, but Cailan is anything but.  Eamon must be on him again.”

“His wife, that Isolde --”

“Maker preserve us from Orlesians.”

“Well,” Una said. “You can’t fault him for being unambitious.  Celene herself!”

“You might as well get the biggest bitch in the litter,” her mother said tartly.  She rapped her fingers on the desktop, and then shook her head.

“The Bannorn will never stand for it.  This doesn’t ruin our chances completely.”

Eleanor stood.

“In fact, it may help.  If it gets out that Cailan’s putting aside his legitimate, though childless, Fereldan wife for the Empress, the banns will be more responsive to a compromise.” 

“A younger,  _ Fereldan _ queen.  A teyrn’s daughter,” Una added dryly.

“We need to approach Eamon, even though I wouldn’t be the least surprised if this --” Eleanor waved at the missive “-- was  _ his _ idea.”

“If we brought him a peace offering…”

“We’ll have Howe, of course.  Bryland, too.  Alfstanna and Wulff hate Orlais more than anyone…”

Eleanor studied her daughter.  “If we could send you to Ostagar…”

Una leaned forward, smiling.  “I would be happy to go to Ostagar.  Flounce about in my armor, play warrior princess.”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed.  “But you wouldn’t be playing, would you?  I meant go to Ostagar, have a few chance meetings with Cailan, maybe bring him water after a hard day’s work on the ‘field.   _ Not _ attempt to single-handedly end the Blight.  Or whatever this is.”

“I can do both!  Flirting and fighting, I could do both at once.  One-handed, blind!”

“No.  Scratch that.  Your father won’t agree to it either, so don’t start on him.”

Una laughed. “ _ Mother _ \--”

“ _ Mother let me stay I can’t leave you please. _ ”

Una kneeled, blood lapping at her knees.  Eleanor clutched Bryce to her chest.  Her eyes burned into her daughter’s.

“You must go.  Do what is right.  Do your duty.  See justice done.”

Una fiercely pressed her mother’s hand, stained with her father’s blood, to her lips.

“I  _ swear _ to you--  _ I swear _ \--”

She choked.  She choked on her rage and fury.  How fucking dare Howe.  She was the daughter of Bryce Cousland, who had held White River against the Orlesians.  She was the daughter of Eleanor Mac Eanraig, destroyer of a hundred Orlesian ships.  In her blood ran countless lives spent for the sanctity of Fereldan soil.  Lives not cheaply given, unlike Rendon Howe’s honor.

She would fucking claw her way to the top, and Cousland blood would flow through the epochs as kings, queens, defenders, and warriors.  True Fereldans all, with stainless honor and ferocity.

But then!

Cailan got himself fucking killed.

“Well, shit,” said Una.  “There goes that plan.”

“And which plan is that?  The one where you kick Morrigan out?  In grand fashion, with much shaming, perhaps a burning effigy even?  The time-honored tradition of tar and feathering?  Or just the tarring.  Already got the feathers.”

“I can  _ hear _ you,” Morrigan called from across camp.

“I kno-OO-ow,” said Alistair.

Una smiled, stretched out.  Alistair’s eyes followed her legs unfolding.

He was cute, this fellow Grey Warden of hers.  He was cute when he was happy, bright eyes crinkling around his snappy little jokes.  He was cute when he was sad, too, which was often now that Duncan was gone.  Puppy-dog eyes.

She was tempted to pet him a little.

He liked her.  She could tell by the way he’d watch her face.  Una was pretty.  A classic Fereldan beauty, not very original, but quite satisfying.

And it was nice to have a little distraction.  When lately everything was darkspawn, dead mentors, dead Couslands, dead kings --

“--father was King Maric.”

Una had been smirking a little, though Alistair’s tone had been serious.  Her smirk withered.  And there, outside of Redcliffe, the late afternoon mist gathering in the valley below, the sun still caressed their shoulders.  And Alistair was telling her a fairy tale about a poor little orphan boy that lived a poor little orphan life, but he had a secret!  He was a secret prince, just waiting for his fairy godmother to come along and transform him.

To paraphrase.

Just to clarify: it wasn’t as though Una wanted to shirk her Grey Warden duties.  She saw what darkspawn did to Fereldan; she saw the innocents ripped apart bodily, she saw the ragged refugees forced to beg the charity of strangers, and she saw the dark, sterile wreck this land could become.  Every arrow through a hurlock’s gullet was another life saved, and it was on her  _ honor  _ that she held stalwart to her duty.

But she could be a fairy godmother, too.  She could be the sort of fairy godmother that saved a little pixie dust for herself, to fashion a little crown to wear as she sat beside the transformed king.  The sort of fairy godmother that rose above her shitheel enemies.  Rose high enough so that no Cousland would ever again be so vulnerable to an ally’s betrayal.

She was Una, of Highever. But she was  _ more  _ than just Una.  She was Eleanor, Bryce, Fergus, Byron, Elethea, Haelia, Sarim -- on and on, back to the very first seeds.  She was the promise of honor and glory for the Cousland house.  The promise of justice.  Revenge.

She could be a fairy godmother for these things.

It would be so easy, too.  Alistair was attracted to her.  And he was so innocent, so guileless.  He should have taken the secret of his birthright to his grave, the fool.

“--just think of me as someone too lucky to have died with the other wardens,” Alistair was saying.

“As you say, my prince,” Una demurred.

“Oh  _ lovely _ \--”

Love?  As in  _ love _ ?  The  _ love _ sort of love?

Fucking fuck  _ fuck-fuck _ .

How had it come to this?  When did she start looking at Alistair,  _ really _ looking at him?  At his silly, off-kilter grin.  At his back during a fight as he stood before her, an indomitable barrier of furious blows.  At his eyes that were soft, unspeakably tender as he said  _ I love you _ .  At his eyes that watched her mouth say the same, and mean it, too.

“I love you,” Una exhaled.

She tried to breathe, it was no use, she could only gasp and call for him.  She pulled him closer, deeper into herself.  She wanted to pull him down into the tenderest, most vulnerable parts of herself, the unseen pit of her soul.   _ See me, know me.  I want to be honest. _

They lay, their bodies weak and limp, staring at the whorls in the ceiling’s plaster.

“Landsmeet’s tomorrow,” Alistair said.

“Yes.”

“Sooooooo, we still on for this claiming-the-throne thing?”

Una turned on her side.  She reached for his hand, laced her fingers with his.  She looked at him looking away from her.

“Alistair.  Do you really not want this?  I meant it, you know,” she said fiercely. “I meant it when I said you would be a good king.  Fereldan  _ needs _ an honorable man, a man that believes in doing good.”

Flushed, Alistair grinned that silly grin.  Una pushed down the urge to kiss him savagely.  He still wouldn’t look at her, though.

He coughed. “Y’know.  I didn’t  _ really _ get it, at first.  This whole,” he put on a ridiculous voice, _ “duty and honor of the nobility _ .  Which seems to mostly mean you’re the first to bloody the Orlesian’s faces.  Or the darkspawn’s.”

“But watching you, I know it’s more.  You are so sincere, so committed.  I really do believe you would throw yourself in front of any evil if it meant it was for Fereldan.  Which is terrifying, by the way, please stop it.”

He gripped her hand.  She was grinning herself, now.

“So.  So.  There are two thrones.  And I was thinking a Cousland would be nice for the other one.”

Alistair was pursing his lips, avoiding her eyes, the way he did when he thought he  _ might _ be about to get in trouble, but he  _ might  _ get out of it.

_ He knew _ .

Una sat up.  Alistair’s eye flicked down to her bare tits, then shot back up, a little terrified.  She gripped his face, smooshing his cheeks a bit, and laid her forehead against his.  She glared into his eyes, so close their eyelashes tangled.

“I hate you, you stupid ex-templar royal bastard.  I hate you, and I love you.”

“Oh.  Well, that’s good,” he whispered.

“I swear to you, Alistair.  I will always protect you.  You will never be harmed as long as I breathe.  All dangers political and physical, I’ll slay for you.  I swear to you.”

Alistair smiled, touched her cheek.

“And here I was just hoping for more canoodling.”


End file.
